To take advantage of opportunities/solve problems, the need for a greater than local/cross-boundary approach can be seen. Regional cooperation is the nominal tool, yet the goal is to be greater; have greater capacity, resources, market,…. Greater is regional; working across boundaries achieves it. Cooperation is possible when people recognize such regional community. This is regional intelligence: Greater Communities solving problems, of which security is foremost; altogether “community motive.”

The black authors of a plan to unify Northeast Ohio say the region can reinvent itself by taking steps to change housing patterns and to allow minorities greater access to good schools and jobs.

But they say bolder regional strategies, like merging Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, are too contentious to even discuss, given the region's racial makeup and history.

The report released Wednesday by the Presidents' Council, a group of black business leaders, seems to set a boundary for the regionalism debate in the black community.

The authors said they purposely did not explore the prospects of metropolitan government, nor any strategies that would change the political map of a majority black city.

Mayor Frank Jackson told a news conference that he instructed the primary authors, three leading black regionalism consultants, not to consider changes in government structure as they envisioned "how we want this region to look."

Jackson later argued the community is not ready for that kind of discussion.

"A lot of trust and confidence building is needed first, " he said.

Backers of the study said they did not mind Jackson's constraint, as it quickly took on practical proportions.

"This is a 300-page report, " said Lonzo Coleman, a Presidents' Council member who championed the study. "Government alone would have added another 300 pages, and we would probably still be working on it.

It's too divisive."

…

Coleman said Mayor Jackson approached him about two years ago and asked the council to explore the impact of regionalism on black communities, to add a black perspective to a growing debate.

If Spotsylvania is ever going to be a smart-growth community, then a regional approach to capital projects must be a part of the plan.

Regionalism was the hot topic yesterday during the grassroots, nonpartisan political action group Committee of 500's final of three forums at Salem Church Library.

Supervisor Gary Jackson, whom the committee considers the architect of the 2002 Comprehensive Plan, said the theme of the plan now being updated is transitioning the county into smart growth.

Jackson said the 2002 plan focused on goals to better manage growth after several years of large population increases. One goal of the 2002 plan is to keep residential growth at 2 percent a year. Currently, the rate is about 2.3 percent.

"I think, for the most part, those goals have succeeded in allowing the county to get its arms around growth, " he said.

Fredericksburg City Council member and Fredericksburg Area Metropolitan Planning Organization Chairman Matt Kelly said there must be a regional strategy to problem solving.

"What happens in one locality affects another locality and we need to plan for that, " he said.

Kelly said FAMPO is combining the comprehensive plans in Fredericksburg and Stafford, Spotsylvania, Caroline, King George counties into one map to show growth patterns. It will help tie land use and infrastructure needs together and could spur regional agreements.

FAMPO is also creating a 25-year transit study and investigating how to create a regional transportation authority with power to generate money.

Kelly said state and federal governments will be more likely to help fund projects if they see a regional benefit. But to do this, "sound-byte politics" must end.

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has announced the terms of reference for a Capital Region Integrated Growth Management Plan that will be completed by January 2008.

The terms of reference will allow the 24 municipalities in the Capital Region and the Industrial Heartland to develop a long term, integrated management plan to support economic growth, with particular attention to the economic, social and environmental impacts on all residents of the region.

All partners recognize the need for, and desire more formal co-ordination of their efforts. Provincial leadership is essential to ensuring the highest quality of life for all residents of the Capital Region - and all Albertans - through the capture of value added activity.

“It’s a fundamental part of my vision that we co-operate in building Alberta's future. To manage growth, I believe leadership by the province and joint action by our municipalities is key to the efficient, cost-effective delivery of services, ” said Stelmach. “So, I’m releasing a road map towards that goal, and I’m confident it will lead to a long-term plan to support anticipated development in the Capital Region over the next 20 to 50 years.”

There was a time when people who said they lived in Des Moines meant they lived within the corporate limits of the incorporated city of Des Moines. Today, when people say they live in Des Moines, they could be referring to anyplace in the urbanized region that sprawls across three counties in central Iowa.

All these communities depend on one another. Their economic vitality depends on the region's economic vitality - a notion that is the heart and soul of the Project Destiny proposal.

Until relatively recently in its history, Des Moines claimed ownership of more or less everything within its borders. Since World War II, the outward movement of people, jobs and retailing has accelerated, and today the population of Des Moines makes up less than half of the total population of Polk County, and that percentage shrinks further if the definition of the metropolitan area is expanded to include surrounding counties. The size difference between Des Moines and metro Des Moines will grow ever wider, since the population of the city is almost certain to grow slowly, if at all, while the suburbs and exurbs leap forward.

That reality is a driving force of the Project Destiny proposal: Future growth will be measured regionally, and efforts to spur economic development must likewise happen regionally.

Looked at separately, the relative population decline of Des Moines compared with its suburbs is disturbing. With some exceptions, such as new housing and office buildings downtown, the city faces serious challenges. It is leaking retail sales to the suburbs and has the highest property-tax rate in the county.

Looked at in the larger perspective, though, with Des Moines defined as the metropolitan region, the news is not so depressing. The population and economy are growing by healthy measures. Indeed, Dallas County is among the fastest-growing counties in the nation.

It took 231 years of European settlement to grow the regional population of Arizona's oldest pueblo to its current 1 million.

Now that we've ranged all over the valley and into the adjoining counties, we're going back to the original model of development — building by the river upon the ruins of the past.

It was the model for our first 4, 000 years, as civilizations piled layer upon layer in the few places that supported habitation.

It's a model we kept for 170 years after Don Hugo O'Conor selected this site for a Spanish presidio in 1775. He proclaimed that the area that is now Downtown Tucson satisfied the requirements for food, housing and shelter.

…

This was obviously the place.

…

Power to transport basic necessities and to pump water huge distances combined with the invention of the automobile and air conditioning to allow urban sprawl, suburban sprawl and the current phenomenon of meta-sprawl, which jumps physical and jurisdictional boundaries with ease. Live in Benson. Work in Tucson.

Development, which once followed rivers, now follows asphalt.

Now, as we look for ways to deal with the problems we created by spreading out, we are returning to our origins, seeking to revitalize Downtown, to rebuild and repopulate the core.

The first residents induced Downtown by Rio Nuevo will soon move into homes on streets laid over the lines of ancient canals, or acequias.

Substantial health disparities exist among the region's suburbs and two of its largest cities, Lowell and Lawrence, where teenagers are more than twice as likely to become pregnant and fewer expectant mothers of all ages receive adequate prenatal care, according to a new state health survey.

The report also shows gaps among racial and ethnic groups in a range of categories, including the rates of HIV infection and AIDS, asthma, diabetes mortality, and opioid overdoses. Meanwhile, the region's predominantly white suburbs are healthier than the state as a whole on a host of indicators, including rates of homicide, sexually transmitted diseases, and accident-related injuries.

The 173-page Regional Health Status Indicators report represents a departure from past documents generated by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which usually releases statewide numbers or city-by-city data for certain health categories, such as births. But new Health Commissioner John Auerbach asked the department to produce region-by-region omnibus reports, dividing the state into six areas, including a northeast band that sweeps north and west of Boston through much of this area and includes the communities on the North Shore and beyond, up to the state border.

"We're providing communities with the most comprehensive health report that the department has ever released on the health of a region, " Auerbach said. The compilations do not include analysis to explain the numbers, but nonetheless should help state and local public health officials and healthcare providers better understand regional health issues. Auerbach said the reports -- and a series of public forums across the state -- will help the department set policy and funding priorities to target local health concerns.

"This is part of a developing relationship with the residents of the regions, " said Auerbach, who held a northeast forum in Andover this month.

… a media economy based on size -- to a creative economy based on time.

Economies, as a rule, are governed by what is most scarce. Today, time is our most precious resource. No matter how you slice it, there are only 24 hours in a day. As the competition for our time/attention keeps increasing both online and off, the supply remains finite.

Viewers will find themselves making rational choices on where to allocate their time and attention for both the programming they watch and the commercials that they engage with. Trade-offs will be necessary. These trade-offs will prove especially critical to a marketer's success.

Because the pool of each individual's time is finite, time spent with one brand's advertising, is more than anything else, time not spent with the competitor's advertising. This alone offers value to advertisers. Since people don't normally buy from strangers, time spent with a brand's advertising should correlate directly to sales.

As the value of time spent becomes better accepted, advertisers will start to pay their agencies based on how well they create this value. The more time the viewer spends with the commercial, the better it will be for the advertiser. Hence, the more they should be willing to pay their agency. The reverse, or course, will also hold true.

In this new results-based economy, failure will no longer be lucrative.

Taking place on 17–19 October 2007, Global Outsourcing Location Strategy Summit (GOLSS USA) is a groundbreaking event for representatives from multinational companies keen to understand what different geographical regions have to offer their organisations.

In today’s business world, more and more companies are looking to source improved processes, better efficiency and growing talent from the global pool of resources available. Many companies have already sourced some of their functions abroad and are now looking to make the next step, but where?

OUTSOURCING SUMMIT

The calibre of delegate invited to this prestigious event will be from large multinationals, looking at diversifying risk by broadening the number of regions in which they currently source to incorporate new emerging markets. Companies will be looking to understand and gain better value from existing and potential sourcing contracts.

All the companies attending will have an annual turnover in excess of $1 billion. This means that all attendees will face similar challenges, allowing valuable benchmarking of sourcing practices with their peers in the industry.

Attendees will include investment promotion agencies, regional outsourcing bodies and regional development agencies from a variety of global locations. Both near and far shore destinations will attend from both emerging and reinvented markets. This diversity allows for like-for-like comparisons and challenges the rationale of using traditional geographical regions for sourcing.

OUTSOURCING, WORKSHOPS, DISCUSSION AND CONFERENCES

The format of GOLSS USA will be one-to-one business meetings run alongside world-class interactive workshops, roundtable discussions and conference content. This is a fantastic opportunity to benchmark existing practices and learn about the various global options from recognised industry sources under one roof.

Frank Elias III, the new president of the Mohawk Valley Chamber of Commerce, recently spoke with the Observer-Dispatch editorial board. He has held the position for about a month.

Observer-Dispatch: What do you think the area's greatest challenges are, in terms of what the chamber deals with?

Frank Elias: Regionalization, cooperation and working with groups from outside of the area. There's often a perception of the local area not having a regional approach, not being able to work together, not having a vision. Knowing the people that are here and knowing some of the projects that we're working on, there is plenty of potential, and there is a lot going on that people are not fully aware of.

We often see Utica as separate from Rome, but when people from outside the area look at our area, we stand to benefit by regionalization by saying "Utica-Rome." I mean look at the population difference between Utica and Rome separate and Utica-Rome combined. We will be viewed much more positively if we were to act regionally and portray ourselves as a cooperative regional entity.

O-D: What are some cooperative efforts you can be involved in with the Rome Chamber of Commerce?

Elias: Well, right now, water issues. I'm getting into these things now and right now water seems to be an opportunity. The Hinckley Reservoir in Herkimer County is the water supply for much of Herkimer and Oneida counties, and there seems to be a need for water in the western part of Oneida County, so there is a terrific opportunity for us to work together to make some good things happen.…

10. U.S. regional communities - sub-State, State or multi-State -in news articles. Highlighted words are Google search terms. In this and the following section, links to websites of organizations are added to the news excerpt when this is the first time an organization has been found. A goal of this newsletter is to find every regional council in the U.S. in a news story. In most cases, where a full name is present a Google search will quickly get one to that organization.

.10Tysons Re-Design Called ‘One of the Most Exciting Opportunities in USFalls Church News Press, VA“The focus on whether the rail line should be above or below ground is a distraction from the real issues attending this historic opportunity to impact overall regional design, ” he said. Above-ground rail need not be a deterrent to this, he went on, ...

A thumb goes up to Kenton County Judge Executive Ralph Drees for daring to use the "R" word - pushing for a study of regionalism. The advantages and disadvantages are worthy of debate and there are nearby models - Lexington, Louisville and Indianapolis ...

.13County rated No. 1, city ranks No. 5 for attracting firmsTucson Citizen, AZ - 1 hour ago"This type of recognition in a national publication is sure to get more site selectors thinking about Tucson for future expansions and relocations, " said Joe Snell, president of Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities.

.15The arts transform, connect, and workDaytona Beach News-Journal - Daytona, FL, USAThe study states that those three levels of governments collectively spend less than $4 billion annually to support arts and culture -- a 7:1 return on ...

.17Charlotte Assembly has first dayCharlotte Sun-Herald - Charlotte, FL, USABut some members of the group felt that exclusivity does not mean regionalization, a stance reiterated by Cummings for months. ...

.18NW Fire in SWAT disputeArizona Daily Star - Tucson, AZ, USA"They will no longer subsidize, through Northwest Fire District taxpayer dollars, a regionalized (SWAT paramedic) program." It's not clear how the county ...

Community involvement with the school, he fears, will diminish as local control gives way to regional oversight. “We’ve got a town that supports the school and is using the hell out of it, ” he said. …

.24Speaking of regionalismCleveland Plain Dealer - Cleveland, OH, USAConsultants will talk today about their new report, "Regionalism: Growing Together to Expand Opportunity to All, " which outlines how regional cooperation ...

.25Council votes to exit RTAThe Coloradoan - Fort Collins, CO, USAFort Collins City Council doesn't want to participate in the regional transportation authority proposal in November but still wants a seat at the table. … "

.26RTA meeting: Fort Collins can still playThe Coloradoan - Fort Collins, CO, USA"You can interpret that to mean that Fort Collins is not willing to play regionally but I don't see it that way and think that is the case, " Atteberry said. ...

U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-WV, Co-Chair of the Congressional Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) Caucus, was instrumental Wednesday, June 20, 2007 in helping to defeat an amendment to the Energy and Water Appropriations bill that would have zeroed out funding for the Commission. …

.30Toledo Bridge, State's Costliest to OpenForbes - NY, USA"It just didn't make a lot of sense, " said Anthony Reams, president of the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments. When the bridge - called the ...

Globe-Gazette - Mason City, IAThe North Iowa Area Council of Governments in Mason City has been awarded $51000 to formulate long-term regional economic development strategies. …

.32Planning expert joins Highlands panelNorthJersey.com - Hackensack, NJ, USAThe regional council is crafting a master plan to direct development away from key water-generating lands in the Highlands, which encompasses portions of ...

.33Group seeks expansion of local walking, bike trailsBy Linda Angelo ... Saginaw County Line to the Lapeer County line ranks as the No. 1 priority of the Genesee Regional Trail Council, an informal group of trail advocates with staff support provided by the Genesee County Metropolitan Planning Commission....

11. Other in the news: Highlighted words are Google search terms.

.10Trading Regional Insults Could be OutlawedInstitute for War and Peace Reporting - London, England, UKPolitical scientist Bakyt Beshimov believes that regionalism is a threat to Kyrgyzstan's national security and that those who promote it should be ...

.11UK Tops Ernst & Young 2006 List of European Direct InvestmentBloomberg - 13 minutes ago``If you've got a large number of projects it's showing your competitive position for investment, '' said Nigel Wilcock, regional development director at Ernst & Young, in an interview. ``The UK is a low risk, stable business environment, ...

.12OBAC and the strange case of the missing wordOpinion250 News - Prince George, British Columbia, CanadaWe are talking about an organization that claims to be the "voice" of "community interests" in the region in "setting priorities" and developing "a regional ...

.14Region goes after TDC broadband investmentNova News Now - New Minas, Nova Scotia, CanadaWith some support from the province of Nova Scotia, Mayor Leefe said the region really underscored the importance of providing broadband service to rural areas. …

.15Region to launch million-dollar plansSt. Catharines Standard - St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada"We believe we're ideally situated to be the economic and cultural hub of the Niagara region and wine country, " Mayor Brian McMullan said after the funding ...

.16Russia has high hopes for Black Sea forumRIA Novosti - Moscow, RussiaRussia and Turkey, which hope to restore their previous level in many spheres of regional cooperation, are quite worried about the appearance of US naval ...

.18Govt fails to ask EC to study GozomaltaStar.com - MaltaThe Commission would be asked to propose appropriate measures, as required, in the framework of the Community regional policy or other relevant Community...

.20Singapore company to prepare master plan for Punjab cityPunjabNewsline.com - Mohali-Chandigarh, Punjab, IndiaThe Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) Friday executed an agreement with MIS. Jurong International Private Limited (a Government Company owned by Singapore) for preparing the Regional Development Plan and the Master Plans of the areas and towns situated within the jurisdiction of GMADA. ...

.22Penang can be region's LED Valley: ExpertBusiness Times - Malaysia - MalaysiaPENANG has the potential to become a Light Emitting Diode (LED) Valley for the region with its manufacturing strength and research ...major technology economies like South Korea, Taiwan and China have earmarked LED as a 'national priority' to reduce carbon dioxide levels under the Kyoto Protocol.…

.23Workshop on Regional Planning Opens in DamascusSANA - Syrian Arab News Agency - Damascus, SyriaPrime Minister Mohammad Naji Ottri underlined on Sunday importance of the regional planning as a basic work for local development and a tool to push the reform process forwards ....

.24Review: Fourteen Word Processors ComparedBy RossB In one of those "a customer just asked me how the different word processors compare to each other" types of questions and answers, here'sa great comparison of 14 word processors, including 3 online ones and both minor and major players ...

12. Blogs: Highlighted words are Google search terms.

.10Mark Belling Rips Regionalism: Says It's A Pro-Milwaukee PlotBy James Rowen(James Rowen) Mark Belling rants in The Freeman that the M-7 regional collaboration will steer development away from the suburbs into the City of Milwaukee. Even for Belling, this is blather. Freeway expansion...water diversion planning.

.14Measuring benefits of the booming economyBy Bradley Meacham For details on how BC stacks up, take a look at the latest Cascadia Scorecard by Seattle's Sightline Institute, which includes a wide range of alternative indicators to measure regional development.

Here's an interesting take on the size of Cascadia's economy. This map replaces U.S. state names with a country of similar economic size.

.16A Charming MetropolisBy Ryan Avent Even modest improvements, increasing average rail speeds to 100 mph, could completely alter the way residents of the mid Atlantic region live and work. At that speed, to say nothing of attainable and much greater velocities available to ...

.17Spotlight: Ryan White Planning CouncilBy David Mariner(David Mariner) The mission of the Metropolitan Washington Regional Health Services Planning Council is to plan for the comprehensive delivery of HIV/AIDS services and allocation of resources for the Eligible Metropolitan Area (EMA), as mandated by the ...

.18RegionalizeBy (Sarpy Sam) In a letter sent on June 19 to the Senate Finance Committee, the US Cattlemen's Association ( USCA ) made it clear that opposing regionalization of Argentina, related to animal health disease issues for import purposes, ...

.19St. Kilda the Opera: beyond the Central Belt monocultureBy scottish futures Instead it's clear that micro-regional identity can act on an international stage. Five nations (Scotland, France, Austria, Belgium and Germany) and at least four art forms (film, theatre, dance, opera) have combined in a wonderful ...

Note: Multiple region related reports. Ed.International support and regional cooperation, especially from timber importing countries, is essential to preserve the remaining orangutans, the rainforests of Southeast Asia, and the people whose livelihoods rely on these ecosystems, ...

.21Where are the political divides on international development?Overseas Development Institute - By Simon Maxwell Eighth, there was an interesting difference of emphasis on the role of governments. Gareth Thomas was emphatic that only Governments could underwrite service provision, and was sceptical of the view that NGOs could take on this job. ...

.22Instituto Elo Amigo: $130051Purpose: promote regional development through the implementation of a comprehensive cluster of projects in the region of Medio Jaguaribe, state of Ceará, northeast Brazil, with a focus on creating an inter-institutional management ...

.25Climate change: global governance is failing.By Willy De Backer Therefore, I think it makes much more sense to focus our climate change efforts on local and regional governance structures which also have the advantage of being closer to the citizens who will have to change behaviour if any climate ...

.26 brain regions & envisioning the futureBy Nik Brain imaging research at the University of Washington in St-Louis now sheds light on the regions of the brain we use to imagine future events. It turns out they strongly overlap with the regions we use to recollect the past. ...

.28Create regions in your code with RegionerateBy Adi(Adi) Browsing through code is always a lot easier using regions, and I keep grouping methods/fields/properties in my code in regions. Now it seems I found the perfect tool for me: Regionerate lets you define regions in your code and ...

.28Mars Special Regions MeetingBy NASA Ames Research Center Jennifer Heldmann has been invited to participate in a special COSPAR Colloquium on Mars Special Regions. This meeting is an essential step in developing an international consensus on the definition of "special" regions on Mars, ...

The ICANN Geographic Regions form the basis of the regional structure of the ALAC and ccNSO, and are used to ensure the geographic diversity of the ICANN Board, ccNSO and GNSO Council. The Geographic Regions are defined by: …

Supporters of the Heart of the Triad plan shouldn’t despair over the recent failure of a state Senate bill that would have gotten the plan more than $2.2 million over the next two fiscal years. The plan for orderly growth is needed now more than ever. But organizers need to do a better job of selling it to the public — including legislators.

Coordinators of the plan are focusing on several thousand acres in the area of Guilford and Forsyth counties that spreads from the western fringe of Greensboro to the eastern fringe of Winston-Salem to the northern fringe of High Point. They want to enlist local governments to approve a regional planning strategy for the land. The sad alternative, they suggest, is seeing the area eaten up by urban sprawl.

But the backers have met with resistance from longtime landowners in the area, who say they feel threatened by the plan to bring in a business park and related development. They fear such development would destroy the rural beauty of their land, even though supporters say that a key point in their plan would be preserving plenty open space.

Pushing the plan is certainly an uphill battle, and the backers must often feel as though they’re trying to herd cats. There are several municipalities involved, including some leaders in those municipalities who have their doubts about the plan. “Regionalism” sounds nice, but the process of trying to effect it for a project like this is downright hard.

Add in all the residents involved, and the difficulty level rises even higher.

As they said in Cool Hand Luke, what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.

For more than seven years, the residents of El Rio, Strickland Acres, Saticoy and Oxnard's College Tract have lived with a regulatory time bomb ticking in their backyards.

Blamed for contaminating one of the county's most important water supplies, they've been ordered to stop using septic systems to treat their household wastewater by Jan. 1, 2008. Since that prohibition was enacted by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board in 1999, homeowners have grappled with the prospect of skyrocketing monthly utility bills and thousands of dollars per household to dig trenches, lay pipe and connect to an expanded city sewer system.

But as the deadline approaches, new research suggests aging septic systems are not the sole source of the nitrates contaminating the local water supply. Area farmers, particularly those who grow strawberries — the county's most valuable agricultural commodity, worth more than $328 million last year — also share responsibility. And growers on the Oxnard Plain may soon find themselves forced to adopt new irrigation strategies or risk sanctions from state water-quality regulators.

"It's something we're really going to have to be concerned about, " said Rex Laird, chief executive officer of the Farm Bureau of Ventura County.

Tracking contaminants

Over the past three years, the United Water Conservation District has been monitoring how irrigation water behaves after it leaves sprinkler heads and dripper tubes in orchards and fields. With grant funding from the State Water Resources Control Board, United installed sensors at about 70 sites scattered across farmland that, like El Rio and its neighboring unincorporated communities, sits atop a critical groundwater basin.

Other menu sections available from this link include: Regional Development; Regional Council; Regional Commission; Regional America; Regional Asia; Regional Europe; Regional Competition; Regionalism; Intergovernmentaland other search terms. They can be sorted by date or relevance. These are among the 50 search terms I use to produce this newsletter.

My name is Tom Christoffel. I've worked in the field of intergovernmental cooperation since 1973. As a consequence, "I see regions work." Regional Community Development News is published weekly based on news reports as of Wednesday.

Making visible analysis and actions at multi-jurisdictional regional scales is its purpose. "Think globally, act locally" was innovative in its time. Today the local scale is often too small to address today's needs and opportunities. "Think local planet, act regionally, " is my candidate paradigm. (No one said we're only allowed one paradigm.)

We can see that “regional communities” are organized locally and now act both to avoid tragedy in the commons and gain benefits. An effective multi-jurisdictional regional community has DNA: it is geographically Defined; has a common Name and its Alignment is inclusive of smaller communities and participatory in larger communities. So, by scanning this compilation, reading articles and checking organizations - you too will be able to see the regional communities that already exist.

News references are found using the Google News search service. Media article links are “fair use” to transform globally scattered reports to make regional approaches visible. Links go to the publisher and do not compete with it. Such publishers are likely to have related stories and thus be seen by new customers. “Regional” is an emerging news category. There is no charge for this service and no profit is made from its use, though any user can become more aware of the topic itself.

The system is based on a geocode scheme set up for earth that focuses on established political boundaries as a basis for regional grouping of nations, states and localities. It is decimal system based to take advantage of the sort criteria for numbers in computers. It utilized the Sector Group and Region codes of the United Nations and ISO. Geographic information system technology does not solve the problem, but its tools can be used with the geocodes.

The geocode system effectively organizes Wikipedia entries as a library management and the geocodes can be used for data aggregation. This has been developed under a Creative Commons license and would benefit from a global network implementation where local users cooperatively related subnational geographic regions and component political geography.

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Earth ( we know its a spherical whole)

Humanity's Local Planet

Universe Man at the Boundary

Local Planet - Regional Space

Our Local Planet has systems of Political Geographies which combine as Regional/Greater Communities

Universe Man's place on earth is local and regional silmultaneously depending upon the system of regions, sub-regions of the planet as local wholes: continents, nations, states, provinces, districts, counties, shires, municipalities. etc., which have local regions within and between them which are capable of being greater communities at many scales.

Based on my experience as a regional planner and agency director, 1973 -2008, and in recognition of emerging "regional communities," I developed three thoughts about community that relate to the challenge of working across-boundaries as greater or regional communities. The thoughts/theses apply for communities at the scale of bonding or bridging social capital as defined by Robert D. Putnam, which is alternately local or regional. (link below)

As of 2011, considering the global financial crisis brought about by pursuit of the "profit motive," it struck me that this has come to dominate modern life. This is a relatively new invention of civilization and wasn't a concern for most of the time that homo sapiens has been on the planet.

The three thoughts below that had emerged in my experience of working on regional cooperation now represent what I now posit as the "community motive." Concern about "profit" can emerge within an established community over time, but, to my mind the "profit motive" does not exist in the wild.

1) Community precedes cooperation.2) Community is how life solves all problems.3) Security is the primary purpose of community.

These three thoughts, theses if you will, are the basis of the "community motive." Following is some exposition about each one.

As I see it, security has always been the priority for humans since the plains of Africa. That's why communities first seek to establish defensible boundaries. After the basics are in place, security focus shifts to the social and economic. Boundaries work like the membrane in the osmosis experiment most of us have seen in a science class. The membrane is a filter that lets the good things pass through, but keeps unwanted things out. (Osmosis -YouTube - 45 sec.)

The evolved political boundaries of today have consequence. The rules change when you cross them. Though marked on the ground and fortified in some instances, they are conceptual, as pictured above, with Universe Man. The boundary divides the space between local, that within, and regional, everything outside, as labeled in the second panel. The third panel repeats the image within, to show, without graphic elegance, that the land on which Universe Man sits is regional at another scale, as determined by other boundaries, and another area that's local. A territory is both local and regional, depending upon the perspective.

Communities of communities, “regional communities” are greater communities organized to solve a problem, be it managing a watershed, strengthening an economic cluster or ensuring peer competition for school sports. Regional boundaries can be imposed for administrative purposes within states, but for these to be a basis for effective cooperation, a greater community sense is needed for that geography among the people. This is true for multi-state and multi-national regional communities as well. The leaders with such a vision can build a regional community by finding that which is already in place.

This is not to suggest that community is easy to build in order to solve problems. In a crisis, humans of any culture, belief or politics can quickly come together and self-organize to save themselves and others. It was the on-the- ground response to the 9/11 attacks that demonstrated to me the deep responsiveness of human community, as well as the fundamental importance of security. Community is how humans have always survived. This, I think, extends to all life forms.